In the drilling of wells it is customary to use drilling muds as exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,243,000--J. T. Patton etal., March 29, 1966 and 3,275,551--M. R. Annis, Sept. 27, 1966. These patents show that special mud materials are important to the drilling process.
It has been known to mix drilling mud ingredients by adding the ingredients through a control valve into spray from jet nozzles in an on-line circulation loop in a pipeline returning mud taken from the well as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,423,801--J. I. Sloan, July 8, 1947.
Other drilling mud agitating techniques are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,149,603--J. F. Arnold, Apr. 17, 1979; 2,704,658--K. J. Gordon, Mar. 22, 1955; and 3,338,319--P. H. Griffin III, Aug. 29, 1967.
One problem unsolved by the prior art is that of mixer equipment deterioration from wear and corrosion in the presence of abrasive and chemically active mud ingredients which quickly rust, corrode and wear the mixer parts.
Another unresolved problem is the tendency of the mud to lump and cake and the difficulty in attaining a consistent desired mud viscosity.
Still another unresolved problem is the simple and rapid feeding of new special ingredients into the mud mixing apparatus.
A further unresolved problem is to provide high volume, high speed mixing of drilling mud to a desired viscosity.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide improved drilling mud mixing equipment resolving the foregoing prior art deficiencies.